Using Paid Search Ads to Promote Your Blog

At Pubcon 2016 in Las Vegas this month, the emphasis at many of the educational sessions was on using PPC ads to boost your website traffic and promotion. The mantra throughout the week was that organic SEO is no longer enough to compete with your competition. And with mobile search becoming the dominant vehicle for finding content online, paid search becomes even more important.

But what does this mean for photo blog website owners? Do you really need to invest in paid search ads to get traffic? If your photo blog is mainly a way to share your vision with others, than you probably don’t need to use PPC. However, if your website is a means of promoting a photography business or some other form of online business, then I would recommend that you look into at least testing out paid search campaigns to see how they work for you.

While you will have to budget some money to run paid search campaigns, there are some advantages to utilizing PPC. First, you’ll be able to more quickly see what works and doesn’t work, as the feedback loop is with PPC is very fast. Also, you’ll be able to get better placements in mobile searches since the top spots there are all ads. And, you can tailor your ad schedules to increase your chances of getting more clicks.

Finally, while your first reaction to using paid search may be negative due to the money you’ll need to spend, remember that these days improving your organic search results can be a very timely process that in the end also winds up costing you a lot of money.